


It's Not Like That

by Chezmeralda



Category: Free!
Genre: Budding Love, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chezmeralda/pseuds/Chezmeralda
Summary: Makoto Birthday Exchange 2016 Prompt:Makoto bumps into Natsuya at his university. Turns out they go to the same university (different majors) and actually take the same English class. Naturally, they start hanging out a lot, especially when Haru is competing out of town.Rin, all the way in Australia, is totally not jealous, what are you talking about. He's just, you know, a tiny bit worried because Kirishima Natsuya is ridiculously good-looking with good muscles, and from what he's heard from Makoto, he's a great senpai. There's no guarantee that Makoto's heart would not skip a bit when he spends time with Natsuya, and Rin just DOES NOT WANT.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isuilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isuilde/gifts).



> fun fact: i have work on this international holiday. tragedy.

The professor’s voice lulled into the background of his mind as Makoto stared out the window. It was a bit hot by the window, the sun bright and almost intimidating despite being mid September. It was a sort of miracle in and of itself that Makoto hadn’t fallen asleep yet; this sort of spot was the perfect place for a cat to take a nap. Makoto saw the slide change and he flipped his page in his textbook, taking notes on simple phrases that a tourist might find useful in an English-speaking country. The professor guided his pointer underneath the words (with katakana for pronunciation prompts) and the class followed along with minimal enthusiasm. Makoto mumbled along under his breath, thinking about the one time he had asked Rin to read out some of the phrases so he could hear it being said by someone who was fluent.

_“Makoto, do they really teach you these phrases?” Rin clicked his tongue, seeing the copy-pasted passage in the chat box, his eyebrows drawn together. “You know that no one really talks like this, right?”_

_Makoto shushed him then. “Rin, please just read them? My professor doesn’t really know some of the pronunciations, and when the exchange student comes in, they don’t stay so I can’t ask questions. Please?”_

_He gave Rin a pout, clasping both of his hands together and staring into the laptop camera. He could hear Rin squawk and he grumbled a moment later, scratching the back of his head. “Fine, fine. I’ll read them for you,” he conceded, and Makoto couldn’t help the grin that split on his face._

_“Rin, thank you! You’re my hero,” he chirped, and a deep blush began to stain Rin’s cheeks and ears as he rubbed the back of his neck, grumbling faintly to himself, though Makoto couldn’t make out what he was saying._

_“But!” Rin snapped, pointing at the screen and made Makoto flinch. It was almost as if Rin was right there, scolding him. “I’m going to be teaching you some real phrases. Not any of these weak… typing practice type sentences. Got it?”_

_Makoto nodded his head vigorously. “Of course!” he was practically beaming at this point, incredibly grateful that Rin would offer, after he begged him for such a menial task._

_He saw Rin smile despite himself, and that made Makoto return the smile, because the gratitude was there. Rin had to study all of this on his own, smack dab in the middle of it; so, he could never really escape what he was studying. Makoto could escape; he had an outlet, and it was as soon as he exited the classroom threshold._

_“Oh!” Rin’s exclamation startled Makoto out of his thoughts. “I can lend you my old notes if you like…”_

Makoto opened up the smaller, slightly worn down notebook, flipping to the page to useful phrases that Rin learned while he was there. He saw the sort of juvenile handwriting Rin had, wobbly lines and all as the professor droned on. He preferred the cute little doodles in the margins; each one saying something in English. It was a small hint of what Rin was like when he was younger, when he was apart from his friends in Iwatobi.

“Is this seat taken?”

Makoto shook his head, not looking up and thumbing the feathered edge of one of the pages. He felt the person stare at him, and when he looked up he was more than surprised.

“Natsuya-senpai!” 

* * *

 

“Wait, so…”

“Not all English words have the same past tense formula, so your idea won’t work. Exceptions, Makoto, every language has one.”

Rin snickered when he saw Makoto’s pout, grumbling something about how language was dumb anyway. He could see how his snickering only seemed to make Makoto blush and pout more, but despite his teasing he was really impressed with how devoted Makoto was studying.

Rin sometimes found himself wondering why.

“Oh, Rin?” Makoto’s voice pulled him gently out of his thoughts, and he tried not embarrass Makoto as he whipped his head around to look at him. “Your notes that I’m using are incredibly helpful.  Thank you for that.”

Rin ended up blushing, surprised by the thanks. “If I hear you laughing about this, Tachibana, I’ll regret trusting you with my middle school notebook,” he said, waving a finger at the laptop with raised eyebrows.

“I think the notebook is really sweet, Rin. It’s like going to the same middle school as you.”

Makoto’s words forced Rin to pause, and he gulped, clearing his throat as something felt caught in it. “Yeah, well… I’m the senpai, so…”f

Rin felt like dying as soon as the words left his mouth, the thought of _wow very appropriate, Matsuoka_ an overlying theme to what he was thinking about himself. “Okay, senpai. Please take good care of me,” Makoto replied, and Rin’s thoughts came to a screeching halt as he stared, dumbfounded, into the camera. He saw Makoto give him a smile and Rin was wondering exactly what his headline would be if he died of heart failure.

“Oh, Rin! I need to go,” Makoto explained, beginning to clean up in front of him, shoving his books into his bag. “I’m meeting up with someone quickly to discuss the notes for the class.”

Rin nodded, glancing at his clock. He’d need to leave in a few minutes, as well. “It was nice talking to you, Makoto,” Rin said, returning the grin that Makoto already had on his face. He heard in the background someone call out to Makoto, and he watched as Makoto’s seemed to light up upon seeing whoever was calling him. “Senpai!”

Rin blinked, more than a little bit confused as to who Makoto might be talking to. He choked when he saw a man slide into the seat next to Makoto. “Ready to go?” Rin was just staring at his screen. Who was _that_ guy?

As if on queue, Makoto patted on the guy’s. “Speaking of senpais, Rin. This one is my senpai from middle school. Kirishima Natsuya,” he said happily, trying to sling his bag over his shoulder. Rin felt like jumping out of his seat when he saw his hand brush past Makoto’s in an attempt to take his bag from him.

The laptop screen went blank with the video window no longer running. 

* * *

 

“He seems nice,” Natsuya replied.

Makoto laughed, fiddling with his soup spoon and mixing the ingredients in his half empty bowl of ramen noodles. “He’s very nice. I’m sure you’d like him, senpai.”

Natsuya nodded and ate the rest of his noodles, sitting and leaning his elbow on the table. He laughed a bit at the rush around him as people grabbed things to weigh and measure. “Do you like him, Makoto?”

Makoto’s hands froze as he grabbed his chopsticks, the noodles slipping past the wood. He knew that Natsuya could see his face go brighter and brighter red, but he couldn’t control the reaction, and he wondered if he’d die of overheating. “O-of course I like him, senpai,” he started, but he saw Natsuya shake his head.

“You know what I meant by that, Matsuoka, come on,” he said, and Natsuya’s smile turned into a full split grin, Makoto weakly nodding yes to his question. “I support you, so I hope things go well.”

Things _seemed_ to be going well, anyway. Their conversations kept getting longer and longer, until it all just seemed like one long, never ending conversation, never really saying by to each other with each conversation they had. It wasn’t as though Makoto had any way to predict anything, but he was certain that Rin felt the same way as he did, even if both of them were incredibly tentative about it.

“I’m sure things are going great, senpai. Thank you for supporting us,” he said, bowing lightly. 

* * *

 

“It’s awful,” Rin’s voice wavered as he flopped dramatically against the desk. His roommate and teammate didn’t even bother to look up, completely okay with Rin’s antics.

“Oh, I bet,” he replied. There seemed to be no inflection in his voice as he spoke, and Rin wondered if he actually had reactions to anything. He knew that his teammates were trying to prank the both of them for a while now, and Rin had been fooled a couple of times already. “When do I get to tell the other teams that I’m safe and they’re not allowed to try and prank me anymore?”

Rin shrugged, too busy thinking about Makoto’s senpai, Natsuya.  He didn’t hear his teammate at all, wondering about what Makoto might think of his senpai. Did he like him in middle school? Did Makoto hang out with him all the time? Did he end up outgrowing everyone or was his senpai somehow taller than him? “I guess.”

He felt his teammate nudge his arm, and he blinked out of his daze, looking around quickly at the other people with him. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled, at first grabbing nothing and realize that he made his coffee and had already placed it somewhere else.

Rin bit his lip, wondering if he should ask anyone about those two. 

* * *

 

“They’ve eloped.”

Rin glared at Haru as he chewed on his lunch nonchalantly. “Not. Funny,” he grumbled.

Haru shrugged. “I’m not joking. They’ve both found good qualities in each other and are eloping. Right now. With garbage. It’s very important to them since it… does stuff.”

Rin rolled his eyes, deciding that Haru was probably the worst person to ask, even if he was the only person to ask. “Seriously, I’m asking a proper question.”

Haru nodded, taking a sip of his miso and ignoring Rin’s glare, ignoring the impatience that came off of him in waves. “They’re having a baby together,” he said finally, and Rin let out an exasperated sigh. “Makoto’s carrying, but they don’t know if they’ll switch halfway or not.”

“Next time, remind me to not rely on you for important information,” he growled, pushing his face into his hands and trying to massage his temples as he tried to think.

Haru stared at him then, watching how Rin couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. He put down his chopsticks. “Rin.”

Rin glanced up at him, and Haru shook his head. “Stop worrying.”

Rin nodded but continued to think, biting the nail on his thumb as he did so. It wasn’t as though he should be worried, he and Makoto hadn’t really spoken about the odd atmosphere around their relationship. He didn’t have the right to ask Makoto to not speak to Natsuya, either. Not that he wanted to admit that he was jealous.

He wasn’t. He was just concerned.

Rin wasn’t jealous. 

* * *

 

“Do you think I’m doing something wrong, senpai?” Makoto asked.

Natsuya looked up from his book, and he shook his head. “This is in context of…?”

Makoto didn’t say anything at first, but Natsuya sort of had a clue already, and he closed his book. “Why do you think you did something wrong?” he asked.

He watched as Makoto shrugged, rubbing his arm and looking everywhere but at him. “I don’t know… maybe I said something? Or I’m imagining something?” Makoto mumbled, beginning to talk to himself as he lost himself to his thoughts.

His conversations with Rin were increasingly distant, which wouldn’t worry him normally, since that always was the case with how busy they both were, but if felt a little bit like they were struggling to keep conversations going recently, which never used to happen before. Makoto wondered if something had changed, and when it did. He just wanted to be able to talk to Rin; he barely got to see him as it was already.  It got him to wondering when Rin’s next visit might be, and Makoto remembered he never asked because each time they spoke, the atmosphere felt weird.

But maybe he was just imagining things. 

* * *

 

“Rin, what are you looking at?”

Rin flinched when he heard Sousuke’s voice speak to him, and he glanced at the video window before going back to what he was doing. “Homework,” he said.

“Liar,” Sousuke countered immediately, and Rin flinched at how fast his rebuttal was. “You’ve been muttering to yourself the entire time. You don’t do that with homework. What are you looking at?”

He chose to ignore Sousuke, staring at his screen and clicking furiously. “Hey!” Sousuke glared at Rin through the video window, before going quiet for a moment. It wasn’t long before Rin got notifications from everything, his email, his different social media, his private chats, all from Sousuke, asking him what he was looking at.

Rin looked at the video screen and glared back at Sousuke. “… just pictures,” he said through grit teeth. “It’s not important.”

“Clearly it is,” Sousuke said, not believing him at all. “You haven’t answered any of my questions since you called me on video chat.”

“Do you think I could wear purple?”

Sousuke blinked. “What?”

Rin didn’t pause his thoughts to answer him. “I could probably do well in soccer, right?” he asked, clicking randomly and pausing to stare.

“Rin, if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re talking about, I’m sending you weird videos.”

“There’s no way…  There’s _no way_ he also plays guitar, that’s just showing off at this point…”

“MATSUOKA RIN.” The sudden yell caught Rin’s attention completely and finally, and Sousuke narrowed his eyes at him. “What. Are. You looking at?!”

Rin blinked, slowly coming back to his senses as he stared at Sousuke. “Sou,” he began, and Sousuke tried to prompt him to continue his train of thought. “Do you hang out with Makoto a lot?”

Sousuke wasn’t sure how it was relevant, but he decided to play along. “We try to grab lunch together whenever we have time,” he said.

“Does he… does he bring anyone along with him?” he asked, a tinge of worry colouring the tone of his voice and Sousuke’s eyebrow arched. He felt like he knew where this was going already.

“No, not all the time. Sometimes friends from class join us, sometimes it’s Haru who joins us, and sometimes it’s just us two. Why?”

Sousuke could feel that there was someone in particular that Rin was asking about, it was so clear in the way he was biting his lip and stalling what he was going to say, and he tried to think about who Rin might be curious about. “Has he… introduced you to his senpai yet?”

There it was. “Yeah, I’ve met him. They have the same English class, I think? He’s cool.”

Rin looked as though he was fidgeting, and Sousuke realized what was going on by the way Rin wasn’t really talking to him. “You know nothing’s really happening, right?” he said, fighting the grin off his face.

“I guess, but still…”

“What, is the competition too good looking for you?” Sousuke mocked, and the reaction he got from Rin made him snort. “Come on, Rin, there’s nothing for you to worry about. Really.”

Rin didn’t answer, and Sousuke just shook his head. He’d be worried about it until Makoto said it himself.

Sousuke felt that Rin should be more worried about the girls that throw themselves at Makoto, but he decided to keep that info to himself. 

* * *

 

“Rin,” Makoto said gently as he looked at Rin’s profile. They were studying together over the video chat, since they had no time to spare with exams slowly coming up. “Did I do something wrong?”

It caught Rin’s attention enough that he looked up, and he was caught by how worried Makoto was. “No, no… what makes you ask that?”

“Well,” Makoto bit his lip and fiddled with his hands, “you don’t really pay attention when we talk. I thought maybe I upset you somehow.”

Rin’s expression dropped, and Makoto could tell he felt immediately bad. “No, it’s not you. You didn’t do anything. I’m… I’m just thinking about a bunch of stuff.”

Makoto nodded, though he couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling that he’d done something. “Makoto,” Rin’s voice was quiet, and Makoto perked up, “you’re not seeing anyone right now, are you?”

The question caught Makoto off guard, and he paused. “Uh, no?” he wondered where this was coming from. “Why?”

Rin shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, though he looked immensely relieved, and Makoto wasn’t sure how he should react. 

* * *

 

“You’ll be coming home?”

Rin nodded, smiling at Makoto’s bright surprise. “Yeah, in November. Maybe just a bit after your birthday, though, so I’m sorry…”

Makoto shook his head. He was more excited about the news that Rin would be able to come home at all soon. “Just make sure you come back safe. That’ll be your birthday present to me, okay?”

Rin smiled, glancing down at the box he already had wrapped and planned to give to Makoto when he saw him. He bit his lip, making his mind up quickly. “Makoto,” he began, the gravity in his voice making Makoto’s eyes widen. “I know… I know that I was acting weird for the past few days…”

Makoto giggled then, and Rin looked up. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said, waving it off gently. “Sousuke told me what was going on.”

 _Traitor._ “He… did???” Rin felt panicked by what Sousuke might have said to Makoto.

“Yeah, he said you were jealous of Natsuya-senpai?” Makoto asked sheepishly, and Rin felt his face go beet red. He was kicking Sousuke’s ass next time he saw him.

When Rin didn’t answer right away, it just made Makoto laugh again, and Rin blanched, trying to recover from his silence. “It’s okay, Rin, really,” he said, shrugging. “I… think it’s sweet that you were worried.”

Rin wasn’t sure if he heard that right, and it took a few moments for him to process. “You… y-you do?!” he asked, the octave of his voice going higher in his surprise. He watched Makoto nod, and he went red again, and he wondered if this was a form of heat stroke, because it felt that way.

Makoto was blushing, too, and he glanced away from the video screen. “Yeah… I’m flattered that you’d be jealous of anyone around me,” he admitted, and Rin reminded himself to ask Makoto what he meant by that when he was back in Japan.

They lapsed into silence, as if processing the tiny amount of feelings that were beginning to reveal themselves in their small exchange of words. “Makoto,” Rin looked at him seriously. “I have something to tell you when I get back, okay? It’s important…”

Rin felt his palms begin to sweat immediately after saying it, and he wiped his hands on his jeans. “You can’t tell me now?” Makoto asked, and he watched as Rin shook his head.

“No… it’s the kind of news that deserves face to face. I’m just… letting you know,” he said.

He bit his lip, suddenly nervous about his trip home, but the smile on Makoto’s face made him think that it would all be worth it in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry the quality is not at all what i was hoping for... so undeserving of a great prompt ;; i scrapped everything quite literally last minute and changed it again, because i wasn't happy with it. this version is a bit better than the one i first submitted... still not happy with it, since i don't think it really has much depth, but it's up there now, so i can always go back to it, but... ughghghgh... anyways
> 
> Happy Birthday Makoto! ^^ I hope you have all the love you deserve on this day~


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